Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, who became a national political sensation by filibustering her state’s tough new restrictions on abortion, discloses in her upcoming memoir that she had an abortion in the 1990s after discovering that the fetus had a severe brain abnormality.

In Forgetting to be Afraid, Davis also writes about ending an earlier ectopic pregnancy, in which an embryo implants outside the uterus….

The second pregnancy happened in 1996. Davis writes that during her second trimester she took a blood test that could determine chromosomal or neural defects, which doctors first told her didn’t warrant concern. But a later exam revealed that the brain of the fetus had developed in complete separation on the right and left sides, Davis says. She sought opinions from multiple doctors, who told her the baby would be deaf, blind and in a permanent vegetative state if she survived delivery, she writes.

“I could feel her little body tremble violently, as if someone were applying an electric shock to her, and I knew then what I needed to do,” Davis writes. “She was suffering.”

She goes on to say that an “indescribable blackness followed” the pregnancy and that the loss left her forever changed.

The ectopic pregnancy happened in 1994, and terminating it was considered medically necessary, Davis writes. 

~ Associated Press via The Blaze, September 6

[In] the whole of world history there is always only one really significant hour – the present….

If you want to find eternity, you must serve the times.

~ German Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed by the Nazis for publicly opposing Hitler, as quoted in the book, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, by Eric Metaxas

Good morning, and Happy Birthday, Joe Scheidler! Below were my top five favorite political cartoons this week. Be sure to vote for your fav in the poll at the bottom of the post!

by Lisa Benson at Townhall.com…

 by Chip Bok at Townhall.com…

 by Gary McCoy at Townhall.com…

 by Michael Ramirez at Townhall.com…

 by Glenn McCoy at GoComics.com…

Click all photos to enlarge…

The Catholic Globe reported on an interesting competition in Iowa:

Location was a huge factor for Mary’s Choice, a pro-life pregnancy resource center in Sioux City as it is next to Planned Parenthood, because it could be seen by those entering the facility.

According to Sherill Glassmaker, director of Mary’s Choice, when Planned Parenthood erected a tall wooden wall, visibility of the pro-life center was impacted.

“We had a sign on the side of our building and people would pull into Planned Parenthood. A lot of times people would call from the parking lot and they would hop over the wall,” she explained. A shorter concrete wall had originally separated the two centers.

Here is a “before” photo…

After the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic erected the wall to hide access to the other choice, Sherill told me when we spoke by phone yesterday that they thought to erect a sign, but such a move would be in the distant future, since it was a big expense – $50,000. But, back to The Catholic Globe:

“Then one of the local businessmen contacted me in December of 2013 and on his own, he had ideas and plans made up,” she said. “This had tugged at his heart. Every time he drove by and saw the wall, he felt he had to do something. He felt the Holy Spirit was calling him to spearhead the possibility of putting up a big sign.”

Thanks to that volunteer who did much of the legwork, an electronic sign that emerges above the wall of Planned Parenthood went up at Mary’s Choice in July.

“The sign is as big as it can be because the size is based on how much frontage you have and it is as far to the street as it can get,” said Glassmaker, who said the sign was paid for partially through fund-raising and partially out of the center’s budget. “If they go higher with the fence, the sign is designed that it can go higher. It’s on a telescopic pole.”

Until the sign was in place, she acknowledged, she had no idea how beneficial a sign like that would be.

A simple software computer program allows Mary’s Choice to put various messages and images on the sign.

“The visibility is huge,” Glassmaker said, “especially if they are going in on abortion day and they see a sign that says, ‘Choose life’ or ‘Pregnant? We can help.’”

Great story, eh? Thanks to Dawn at Mary’s Choice for sending me photos that all simply make me smile! Here are a couple more:

DelawareOnline.com reported that an employee of the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Wilmington, Delaware, called police on September 3 to investigate a “suspicious package… on the grass next to the parking lot.”

After “a major inbound route for drivers in Wilmington” was closed for 1-1/2 hours, according to newsworks.org, a robot determined the box, addressed to Planned Parenthood, was empty. “Police believe it was trash and had blown out of the dumpster in the lot of Planned Parenthood,” explained Capt. William Browne.

An employee of any other business would have come to work, spotted the box, picked it up, and thrown it away.

But such is the paranoid world the abortion industry has created for itself in its attempt to malign pro-lifers as violent. We comprise the most peaceful social justice movement in history. On any given day dozens to hundreds of prayer vigils and protests are held at abortion clinics throughout the country without incident other than pro-choice violence directed certainly toward their tiny victims inside and sometimes toward pro-lifers outside.

In total, over 41+ years, eight abortion workers have been murdered, all between 1993-1998 except for late-term abortionist George Tiller in 2009. These acts were obviously carried out by people on the fringe, which all movements must contend with.

But the other side enjoys defaming all of us, obviously to elicit sympathy for themselves from the public as well as fear and distrust of pro-lifers. They are also trying to intimidate pro-lifers into backing away from protesting.

Well, this ploy has worked. See photo and story above.

Or has it backfired? Certainly fear keeps doctors and others from working at abortion clinics. It must also avert some segment of the pregnant population from getting abortions.

Do you mind the portrayal of pro-lifers as violent? Do you find yourself responding to the caricature by perhaps overreacting as a peacenik?

So I have been having these imaginings where instead of behind her are these enormous letters that say “FEMINIST,” that she’d come out and it had said, “Hands up, don’t shoot,” or it’d said “birth control” … I mean, yes, “abortion” behind Beyoncé.

I mean, then she would never sell any more records, but I do wonder if it could have been even more political. Like, beyond the “F” word.

~ MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, fantasizing words other than “FEMINIST” singer Beyoncé could have had on the stage behind her during the August 24 MTV Video Music Awards, as quoted by RedState.com (where you can view the video of Harris-Perry head-tripping)

by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli

• Secular Pro-Life lists 8 things that After Tiller left out of their federally funded PBS broadcast.
• At LifeSiteNews.com, Dustin Siggins produces some interesting insights he gleaned from an After Tiller Google+ Chat, even though the panel had no representation from pro-lifers. One of the abortionists, Dr. Susan Robinson, made chilling statements of twisted logic, so often seen in those whose life’s work is ending others’ lives:
  

  Unsurprisingly, Robinson managed to work in the idea that women are “autonomous” beings, and thus killing an unborn child is morally acceptable. “My patient is the woman sitting before me,” she said, which is reminiscent of the Planned Parenthood lobbyist in Florida who told legislators that a baby who survives an abortion does not qualify as a patient — only the mother does.

  “I am pro-life. I am pro-women’s lives. I believe women’s lives trump the fetus under all circumstances,” Robinson said. Taking away the freedom to have an abortion “…is treating [a woman] as a housing unit,” she added, and women as a whole as ‘second-class’ members of society.”

  Other highlights include the introduction of a young doctor committed to late term abortions, Dr. Carmen Landau, who is new to Southwestern Women’s Options in Albuquerque, to take over for the aging late term abortionists.

  MSNBC’s Irin Carmon, the call’s pro-choice moderator, remarked on the commitment of pro-life activists:
  

  As a result, you do have amazing pro-choice activism. But you also have people who wake up every day and think that abortion is the biggest abomination that they have ever experienced, and that they will ever see in their lifetime, and they’re fully devoting themselves to fighting it.

• Stand True’s Bryan Kemper tells of his experience attending a Planned Parenthood-sponsored prayer vigil. Interestingly enough, the ministers praying did not mention the name of Jesus once:
  

  They proclaimed that this prayer vigil was inclusive for all Christians, Muslims, gays and lesbians…. But of course there was not one mention of the innocent human beings being slaughtered in the abortion mills across America. One person even told Mark Wolf “killing pre-born humans is a narrow focus, not worthy of their prayer.

  Pro-life protesters were not allowed to show their signs depicting the victims of abortion, Planned Parenthood’s cash cow:
  

  [A participant] explained to me that they were welcoming all people to this prayer vigil and that she did not want our “dead baby” signs there because they were divisive. I tried to explain to her that Planned Parenthood was killing innocent human beings and that was more divisive than anything. I tried to explain to the minister standing next to her, wearing a collar, that abortion kills innocent children. He just smiled and said, “That’s your opinion.”

  I wonder which part he considers opinion – that the children are innocent, or that abortion kills them.

• At Real Clear Religion, Jeanneane Maxon and Clarke Forsythe remember the great social reformer William Wilberforce on his birthday:
  

  Strategically focused, he combined long-term goals with short-term objectives. These included limiting the slave trade and reducing it as much as possible, and then regulating slavery (through e.g., registry laws) before it could realistically be prohibited.

  One urban legend that needs to be dispelled is that Wilberforce “repented” of his “incrementalism,” or step-by-step approach. There’s no historical record of this. The fact is that Wilberforce pursued abolition of the slave trade and the full abolition of slavery along with short-term objectives that would limit it. It was not either/or; it was both/and.

• Survivors writes about being contacted by a woman in need of materials to present to a friend who is considering abortion. “She said I have two weeks to convince her. This is day one of those 14 days.” The group mailed the woman information, but is also asking for prayers and encouragement in this situation as she seeks to save both mother and child from abortion.
• Wesley J. Smith points out the rhetoric used by those in the fertility and research industries to dehumanize human beings for their own means:
  

  By lying about the nature of the embryo, pro embryonic stem cell research advocates hoped to manipulate society into supporting their research agendas.

  These arguments were always–and remain–false….

  Nor is there such a thing biologically as a pre-embryo – as Princeton biologist Lee Silver admitted. That is a political term invented to skew ethical debates and decisions to permit the manipulation of human life….

  This is biology: At no point in a human life are we not a human life–that started from the time you were a one-cell embryo and has continued uninterrupted until the moment you read these words. And that is true whether your genesis occurred in your mother’s fallopian tube or a Petri dish.

• John Smeaton reports on a protest the SPUC staged outside the Polish embassy in London to show support for pro-life Professor Bogdan Chazen, who was fired from his post at Holy Family Children’s Hospital in Warsaw for refusing to perform an abortion on a disabled child who died naturally following birth.
• At Women’s Rights without Frontiers, Reggie Littlejohn shares an interview in which she discusses her personal faith journey and how God called her to her ministry.
• Saynsumthn’s Blog says that the web address for Planned Parenthood’s award-winning teen sex education website, Teen Wire, has apparently been purchased by a porn site. Since PP’s site wasn’t exactly telling teens how to abstain from sex, maybe this isn’t such a stretch:
  

  According to CNS News, some time ago, David Pounder, a successful pornography star and producer, said that Planned Parenthood’s [teen] website was an excellent source for young people to learn about what he considers the benefits of viewing pornography….

  “Planned Parenthood is an excellent organization that helps people by focusing on how people actually are behaving (i.e., having sex, watching porn, doing drugs, etc.), as opposed to helping people based on how they should be behaving (abstaining from sex, watching the news, eating healthy, etc.),” Pounder, a pornography producer and actor, told Cybercast News Service.

  “Men in their teens are accessing porn, and I think it’s a normal thing,” he said.

  What will they say now???

by Hans Johnson

At a recent NARAL “Stand Up For Abortion Access” rally, there were dueling lines of messages. Pro-choice demonstrators held small signs bearing slogans, while pro-lifers held larger signs showing examples of photographic evidence in the abortion debate.

Created Equal questioned the NARAL supporters as to what they thought of the opposition’s signs. For the most part there were answers of disgust and claims of inauthenticity. It is hard not to be reminded of the classic tv sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes” in which the German Sgt. Schultz looked the other way during the many escapes and shenanigans of the Allied prisoners he was supposed to oversee. His catchprase was: “I see nothing! I know nothing!”

But this is not a comedy. Many people are willfully ignoring thousands of atrocities done each and every day in aborturaries across our country.

One abortion supporter slips up, calling the aborted children depicted in the images what they are – children – before catching herself:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/aU0qI9tEwik[/youtube]

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